Heretical Science

Heretical Science

There is the idea that Science is completely logical, and that it is conducted using purely logic and experimental evidence from the outside world, with personalities and popularity playing no part in it.

That idea is wrong.

To introduce a radically new idea into science it is often necessary to wait for the old men to die – the old men who are the senior lecturers and professors, whose reputation depends upon their being right. It takes more than logic to change opinions.

Also experimental research depends upon the availability of money, and that money is made available largely by companies which have a vested interest in the results, or by governments which are more interested in what some particular research can do for them (that government, that country, that political party) than in the fundamental science itself. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (ISBN 978-0-099-59008-8) gives a very clear description of this.

I am working upon two projects in what can be called Heretical Science – engineering and theoretical work which is completely rejected by the bulk of practising academics and engineers. Those projects are on Interstellar Travel, and the Structure of Light.

Interstellar Travel

We have sent men to the moon, and investigative space craft to many places within the Solar System. There are even some craft which have (arguably) moved beyond the Solar System, and into interstellar space.

But we have never (yet) sent any human beings further away than the moon (though real plans are being considered for sending men to Mars), and we have no real plans at all for any more distant travel. Well, not no real plans, but no real plans that are taken seriously by academic, financial and political authorities.

I am currently writing a technical analysis on how we could achieve Interstellar Travel. By that I mean: human beings traveling beyond the Solar System towards some stars other than the Sun. The people setting out on such journeys could never return to Earth – nor could their children their grandchildren – and many generations onwards.

The asteroid belt is further away than Mars, and the Jupiter asteroids further still – but the engineering required to get to them is no more complex than that required to get to Mars. Yes, the trip would take a lot longer, but I argue that it will realistically be achievable in the very near future – the start of construction could begin within twenty years.

My Interstellar Travel analysis depends initially upon our being able to get to the asteroid belt, and from there I describe how we could move onwards.

Structure of Light.

Light consists of photons. Photons travel at the speed of light (obviously!), and because of Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity, a photon cannot have any rest mass, because that would make its moving mass infinite.

However, that is not quite the case. I am arguing, in my papers on the structure of light, that photons do not travel at Einstein’s limit speed, c, which I claim is incorrectly called the speed of light. I argue that light travels at speed c absolutely nowhere in the physical universe as we know it. Yes, the speed at which light travels can (and does) get very, very close to c – but never quite achieves it.

If the arguments I am putting forward are a description of the real universe then we might be able to say where “dark matter” comes from, and the “graviton”. I argue that the “dark matter” is, in fact, the mass of the light which comes from radiating bodies. I also argue that the “graviton” is – possibly – the photon itself… though that is much more problematic than “light does not travel at c”.